Indus Towers to invest Rs 100 crore to set up new camouflaged towers

NEW DELHI: The world's largest telecoms tower provider Indus Towers will invest Rs 100 crore to set up 500 new sites across India within a year.

The new sites, more than 100 of which have already been set up in 50 cities, are camouflaged sites - tower is constructed in a way that it looks like a palm tree or an electric pole - and are powered through electricity, with battery storage as back up.

"The sites take up 80% less space," Bimal Dayal, chief executive officer said.

"We've spent about Rs 25 crore on setting up the new 100 sites that have come up over the last one year in 10-11 cities including Mumbai and Delhi," he added.

The company which has over 1.21 lakh towers in 15 circles, is aiming to increase voice and data capacity in high density areas such that congestion, call drops are reduced and data coverage improves.

The new sites which vary from 3 meters to 30 meters cost up to Rs 30 lakh each, can also be used for charging electric vehicles, the company added.

The customized solutions can in some cases cost 10-15% higher than traditional telecom towers. The company aims to go completely off diesel for backing up towers, having saved 140 million litres last year, and will prepare a road map of doing so by March.

Dayal said that Indus would be beating performance on energy saving this year compared to last year.

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Ahead of Diwali, telecom operators have come up with an array of offers to lure the customers. The Jio effect could also be credited for some of these offers. Here’s a look at some of the recently launched offers

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Bharti Airtel has introduced offers that allow consumers to avail mobile data for as low as Rs 26 per gigabyte (GB). The market leader continued its aggressive play to retain and attract data users to meet the competitive threat from Reliance Jio.

One GB data of will be instantly credited to the customer's account and the additional 9 GB data can be claimed by through the MyAirtel app. The latest offer allows subscribers to avail a maximum of three recharges within 90 days.

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Jio’s welcome offer for iPhone users will remain to be same i.e. offer free voice calls, 20GB data and unlimited SMS for one year, worth Rs 18,000, to all new iPhone users. For the existing users, Jio has given the free benefits of voice calls, roaming, SMS and Rs 50/GB data for month.

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Vodafone India will be offering free incoming calls while roaming nationally for all its customers, starting this Diwali. The telco is also rumored to be rolling out 3G/4G data pack to offer 1 GB data at Rs 55 for prepaid customers.

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GSM telecom operator Aircel is offering 1GB of 3G data for just Rs 24 with a validity of 28 days to its existing and new customers. The customers need to recharge with Rs 329 that would give them 2GB of 3G data with a validity of 28 days. Post this, these customers can get 1GB of 3G data with every subsequent recharge of Rs 24.

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On Diwali, BSNL is offering 10% additional talktime from October 15 to October 31 on special tariff vouchers (STVs) of Rs 449, Rs 359, Rs 201 and Rs 159.
It has also launched new prepaid combo vouchers of smaller denominations with extra talktime and data as bonus from October 15 to October 31.
These vouchers are: Rs 13 (Rs 15 talktime and 10 MB data with a validity of two days), Rs 77 (Rs 80 talktime and 30 MB data with 10 days validity) and Rs 177 (Rs 180 talktime and 50 MB data with 15 days validity).

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Telenor India has extended the benefits of free unlimited night Internet surfing and voice calling to all its subscribers.

With this new offer, Telenor customers can now enjoy the benefits of free unlimited Internet surfing between 11 pm to 7 am and free unlimited Telenor to Telenor local calls between 12 am to 6 am.

Jio’s Rs 2,399 annual plan offers 2GB per day data that costs effectively Rs 200 per month. It also offers unlimited voice and SMS. Airtel and Vodafone Idea’s Rs 2398 and Rs 2399 annual plans, on the other hand, offer 1.5GB per day data along with unlimited voice and SMS